American Civil Liberties UnionACLU.orghttps://www.aclu.org/
'Do We Deserve to Kill?' The Answer Is 'No' After Nebraska's Latest Executionhttps://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment/execution-methods/do-we-deserve-kill-answer-no-after-nebraskas-latest
Nebraska’s fentanyl execution was only possible because the state delayed Moore’s execution for nearly four decades — depleting his will to fight.
<p>“The death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit,” as Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, frequently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/books/review/just-mercy-by-bryan-stevenson.html" target="_blank">explains</a>. “The real question of capital punishment in this country is, ‘Do we deserve to kill?’” For those of us who are most familiar with the legal deficiencies and human cruelties of capital punishment, the answer is a resounding no. </p>
<p>Nebraska’s execution of Carey Dean Moore this morning proves the point. </p>
<p>As a society, we have determined that a death sentence requires that our process for determining who is guilty, for determining whom should be executed, and for executing humanely are transparent and above reproach. By any standard, Nebraska should not have had the authority to kill Moore today with an experimental fentanyl drug protocol. </p>
<p>Moore’s case is remarkable for several reasons. First, he has spent 38 years on death row, the <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/time-death-row" target="_blank">longest known period</a> between death sentence and execution in American history. Second, six years ago, he gave up all appeals and refused to fight for his life. </p>
<p>On the surface, it may appear that Nebraska could execute Mr. Moore without judicial oversight or safeguards because Moore <a href="https://www.omaha.com/news/courts/nebraska-is-moving-closer-to-its-st-lethal-injection-but/article_3197ccf0-6820-589d-b1da-dcee0b7be223.html" target="_blank">agreed to be executed</a>. But looking more deeply, we know Moore’s decision to stop fighting for his life is the result of Nebraska holding him for decades on death row without executing him. </p>
<p>As Moore faced the prospect of execution for nearly 40 years, the state frittered away the time with <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/98-9741P.ZD" target="_blank">unconstitutional delay</a> and <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/chrismcdaniel/nebraska-bought-300-executions-worth-of-illegal-execution-dr" target="_blank">bumbles</a>. Years of Nebraska’s delay took place as it fought to execute Moore and other prisoners using the electric chair, which every other state had abandoned, until 2008 when the Nebraska Supreme Court stepped in and ruled such executions unconstitutional. During these delays, Moore was losing the will to live under threat of execution. When his will expired and he dropped his defenses, Nebraska’s Gov. Peter Ricketts rushed to carry out his signature issue — the death penalty — no matter the cost. </p>
<p>Our legal system can only work properly when representatives for both sides fight as hard as they can, so a judge or jury can see the best of the arguments on each side and then decide a just outcome. In this case, that did not happen. Moore’s appointed attorney asked the court earlier this month to be <a href="https://www.ketv.com/article/nebraska-supreme-court-denies-attorney-s-motion-to-be-pulled-off-moore-case/22668592">relieved</a> because he could not, consistent with a lawyer’s ethics, disobey Moore’s directive not to fight. Using delay, Nebraska has been able to snuff out all of the arguments on the other side. </p>
<p>If a zealous attorney could fight for Moore’s life, what would she have said? The attorney could have shown the court that this lethal-injection protocol featuring fentanyl is unconstitutional, because it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, as a <a href="https://www.whio.com/news/national/nevada-execution-postponed-over-dispute-about-paralytic-drug/E0PiPC3HltUbSgxXcktPvO/" target="_blank">Nevada court has found of a similar protocol</a>. The protocol follows the fentanyl with a drug to paralyze the prisoner before injecting the final, painful heart-stopping medication. So paralyzed, no one in the execution room could see whether the fentanyl had rendered Moore unconscious and unable to feel pain before the painful drugs were injected. </p>
<p>Moore’s attorney could have argued that Nebraska is operating in secret when the state is exercising its most dangerous authority — taking a human life. Nebraska has dodged a May 2018 <a href="https://www.omaha.com/news/courts/nebraska-must-reveal-supplier-of-lethal-injection-drugs-judge-rules/article_c9d75254-3668-5e03-bd06-8ef98323f08d.html" target="_blank">ruling</a> by a state trial court that it has been evading Nebraska public-records law by withholding information about the execution drugs in its possession. Nebraska has filed an appeal and argued that state law allows it to continue withholding the public information until it loses the appeal. </p>
<p>Moore’s attorney could have joined her client as a plaintiff in a <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-files-court-challenge-state-nebraskas-execution-protocol">pending lawsuit</a> showing that Nebraska broke the law by evading the administrative steps required in passing its lethal injection protocol. </p>
<p>Or she could have joined him in the <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/nebraska/articles/2017-12-04/lawsuit-says-governor-exceeded-powers-on-death-penalty" target="_blank">lawsuit</a> filed by the ACLU. The suit argued that after the Nebraska Legislature repealed the death penalty in 2015 — and made this relief retroactive to prisoners already sentenced to death — the state could no longer execute them. Because Moore would not join the lawsuit, Nebraska was able to argue the execution should proceed as though the lawsuit calling into question the legality of the execution did not exist at all. </p>
<p>Finally, as various justices of the Supreme Court have suggested, a lawyer fighting for Moore would have argued that keeping him on death row for 38 years, longer than any other prisoner, made his execution <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/98-9741P.ZD" target="_blank">unconstitutional</a> under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. </p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">People who love justice hate nothing more than a justice system where only one side is able to fight. Nebraska accomplished just such a one-sided battle by delaying Mr. Moore's execution until he gave up. And then we all sat helplessly by as a state, which has shown it did not deserve this irrevocable and horrible authority, executed a fellow human being. </p>Speak Freely<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment/execution-methods/do-we-deserve-kill-answer-no-after-nebraskas-latest">69800</a>Tue, 14 Aug 2018 16:00 -0400American Civil Liberties UnionThis Woman’s Endless Ordeal Shows How the Watchlisting System Harms Innocent Peoplehttps://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/discriminatory-profiling/womans-endless-ordeal-shows-how-watchlisting-system
We’re filing a complaint with the government to stop unfair treatment by TSA and U.S. border officers every time she travels.
<p>Zainab Merchant has a long and growing list of achievements. She is the Orlando-based founder and CEO of <a href="https://zrights.com/" target="_blank">ZR Studios</a>, a multimedia site about current affairs, politics, and culture. She is also a graduate student at Harvard University and mother to three young children.</p>
<p>But for the last two years, Zainab, who is a U.S. citizen, has been subjected to excessive and humiliating searches, questioning, and detention by federal officers every time she has traveled by air or reentered the United States from a trip abroad. This abusive treatment — most likely because she has been placed on a government watchlist — has affected her in profoundly negative ways, both psychologically and professionally. Yet the government refuses to tell her why it keeps happening or give her a meaningful chance to correct whatever error is causing it.</p>
<p>That’s why we’re filing a formal complaint on Zainab’s behalf with the Department of Homeland Security. You can read more about Zainab’s ordeal and the steps we’re taking to defend her rights <a href="https://www.aclu.org/letter/zainab-merchant-administrative-complaint-department-homeland-security">here</a>.</p>
<p>Zainab’s travel experiences follow a clear pattern. She is unable to obtain or print out her boarding passes before arriving at the airport, so she has to wait an hour or more at the ticket counter while airline employees call a number in Washington to see if they can clear her to fly. Transportation Security Administration screeners then run her through a gauntlet at security checkpoints — a process that can take another hour.</p>
<p>Instead of a quick turn in a scanning machine, she must undergo thorough pat-down searches, during which TSA screeners place their hands all over her body, including private or sensitive areas. They remove and inspect all of the contents of her bags, in full view of other travelers passing through the checkpoint. When she finally arrives at the gate, TSA officers are waiting for her there and require her to undergo additional pat-down searches — <em>even though she cleared security only minutes earlier</em> — in front of the passengers who will travel with her on the flight.</p>
<p><img alt="Zainab Merchant getting pat down by security at an airport" width="530" class="advo-image-height-filtered-text media-element file-wysiwyg" src="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/styles/content_area_full_width/public/wysiwyg/zainabmerchantpatdown.jpg?itok=AL-qVWKo"></p>
<p><sup><em>A TSA officer searches Zainab at the airport in Orlando. | Credit: Nadia Hallgren/ACLU</em></sup></p>
<p>Reentering the country from abroad can be even worse. Zainab has had to wait six hours in the middle of the night in a cold customs inspection area with crying children and no access to food or phones. Despite First Amendment protections, she has been questioned about her religion or why she wrote a blog post criticizing U.S. Customs and Border Protection for racial and religious profiling — border officers even blatantly suggested that she refrain from criticizing CBP in the future. She has been subjected to unconstitutional <a href="https://www.aclu.org/bio/zainab-merchant">searches</a> of her laptop and smartphone, which included personal pictures of her without the headscarf she wears in public in accordance with her religious beliefs.</p>
<p>The toll this has taken on Zainab has been severe. She avoids flying if possible because of the anxiety and humiliation she experiences when she does fly. She and her husband also avoid flying with their children, in order to spare them the awful experience of watching their parents demeaned and stigmatized by government agents. Faced with the prospect of undergoing the same invasive, duplicative screening protocol every time she flies, Zainab decided not to enroll in courses at Harvard during the fall of 2017. Compounding all of this is the knowledge that she has done nothing wrong and doesn’t know why the government is treating her this way — but she can’t get anyone inside the government to put an end to it.</p>
<p>This pattern of harassment, intrusive searches, and detention during travel is likely the result of unfair blacklisting: being placed on a government terrorism watchlist. We <a href="https://www.aclu.org/other/us-government-watchlisting-unfair-process-and-devastating-consequences?redirect=us-government-watchlisting-unfair-process-and-devastating-consequences">have</a> <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/what-you-should-know-about-americas-secret-watchlists?redirect=blog/what-you-should-know-about-americas-secret-watchlists">long</a> <a href="https://www.aclu.org/report/trapped-black-box-growing-terrorism-watchlisting-everyday-policing">criticized</a> the federal government’s watchlisting system as a <a href="https://www.aclu.org/other/whats-wrong-governments-rules-watchlisting">due process nightmare</a>. The government uses vague criteria and a very low standard to place people on its master watchlist, which as of June 2016 had ballooned to about <a href="https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/f/b/fb745343-1dbb-4802-a866-cfdfa300a5ad/BCD664419E5B375C638A0F250B37DCB2.nctc-tsc-numbers-to-congress-06172016-nctc-tsc-final.pdf" target="_blank">1 million people</a>. According to the government’s own <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/governments-own-rules-show-why-watchlists-make-bad-policy">watchlisting rules</a>, “concrete facts are not necessary” to meet the standard for blacklisting, and uncorroborated information of doubtful reliability can suffice. That leaves the door wide open to relying on rumor, bias, or false statements.</p>
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<p>The consequences of blacklisting can be harsh and wide-ranging. Blacklisted individuals and their families have been subjected to harrowing displays of force and <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/privacy-and-surveillance/what-american-family-went-through-border-was-clearly">lengthy seizure</a> at the border, <a href="https://www.aclu.org/report/trapped-black-box-growing-terrorism-watchlisting-everyday-policing">surveillance and unjustified stops</a> by domestic law enforcement, and <a href="https://www.aclu.org/cases/kariye-et-al-v-sessions-et-al-aclu-challenge-government-no-fly-list">detention and interrogation</a> by authorities abroad. That’s to say nothing of the psychological and emotional damage that comes with constantly being stigmatized and demeaned as a suspected terrorist — an important but often ignored consequence of blacklisting.</p>
<p>As with other national security-related policies in the post-9/11 era, <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/numbers-tell-story-our-governments-watchlisting-binge?redirect=blog/numbers-tell-story-our-governments-watchlisting-binge">available information</a> indicates that these consequences are borne overwhelmingly by members of American Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities.</p>
<p>To top it all off, the government’s system of “<a href="https://www.dhs.gov/dhs-trip" target="_blank">redress</a>” for people who are or may be blacklisted is completely inadequate. Under it, the government won’t even tell people if they’ve been blacklisted, let alone give the reasons why or a meaningful opportunity to clear their names and get off the list.</p>
<p>After Zainab submitted a redress petition last year, DHS sent her a form letter stating that it “can neither confirm nor deny any information about you which may be within federal watchlists.” Since then, nothing has changed, and she continues to experience harassing searches and detention whenever she travels. </p>
<p>Zainab’s terrible experience is yet another indication of the unfairness of the watchlisting system and the harms it inflicts on individual lives. We’re calling on DHS to stop singling Zainab out for this treatment, investigate the conduct of TSA and CBP officers, and turn over any relevant records. It’s the least that justice demands.</p>Speak Freely<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/discriminatory-profiling/womans-endless-ordeal-shows-how-watchlisting-system">69708</a>Tue, 14 Aug 2018 11:00 -0400American Civil Liberties UnionUS’s Largest Organization of Lawyers Agrees That Courts Must Stop Treating People Like ATMshttps://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/bail-reform/uss-largest-organization-lawyers-agrees-courts-must-stop-treating
Last week, the ABA unanimously adopted 10 guidelines on ending debtors’ prisons and other practices that criminalize poor people.
<p>Last year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions signaled <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/race-and-criminal-justice/jeff-sessions-takes-stand-debtors-prisons">federal government retrenchment</a> on ending debtors’ prisons — the unlawful incarceration of poor people who cannot afford to pay court fines and fees — when he withdrew a critical 2016 guidance on the constitutional principles violated by this practice. </p>
<p>But civil society has stepped in to take the lead. </p>
<p>Last week, the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates <a href="http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/aba_adopts_guidelines_aimed_at_preventing_fines_and_fees_from_penalizing_po" target="_blank">voted unanimously</a> to adopt 10 guidelines on ending debtors’ prisons and related practices that criminalize poor people, marking the 400,000-member organization’s most expansive policy position on a criminal justice issue taken in the past 15 years. This move signals growing bipartisan agreement that no court should lock people up or take away their driver’s licenses or voting rights simply because they do not have money — and that the integrity of our country’s legal system and law enforcement depends on this. </p>
<p>The ABA’s “Ten Guidelines on Court Fines and Fees” are the outgrowth of a <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/leadership/office_of_the_president/publictrust.html" target="_blank">task force</a> convened in 2016 to tackle the problem of growing public distrust in the justice system in the wake of high-profile killings of Black people by police. To counter this distrust, a subsequent <a href="http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/aba_adopts_guidelines_aimed_at_preventing_fines_and_fees_from_penalizing_po" target="_blank">working group</a> decided the ABA needed to take a strong stand against court practices that treat poor people like ATM machines — the collection of payments toward court fines and fees through warrants, illegal jailing, the coercive suspension of driver’s licenses, voting prohibitions, and even the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/10/26/mississippi-judge-resigns-after-barring-mother-from-seeing-newborn-because-of-unpaid-court-fees/?utm_term=.7717d6df7083" target="_blank">separation of children</a> from parents who are simply too poor to pay. The ACLU has exposed these <a href="https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/ending-modern-day-debtors-prisons">modern-day debtors’ prisons</a> in at least 15 states, including through ongoing federal lawsuits like <em><a href="https://www.aclu.org/cases/brown-v-lexington-county-et-al">Brown v. Lexington County</a></em><a href="https://www.aclu.org/cases/brown-v-lexington-county-et-al">, </a><em><a href="https://www.aclu.org/cases/brown-v-lexington-county-et-al">South Carolina</a></em>, which challenges a county system that locks up hundreds of impoverished people each year simply because they cannot pay fines and fees to courts. </p>
<p>The guidelines take a decisive stand against practices that foster a justice system that treats poor people — disproportionately people of color — more harshly than people with money, funneling them into cycles of poverty and punishment, and hurting their families and communities. Take, for example, Guideline 3: “A person’s inability to pay a fine, fee or restitution should never result in incarceration or other disproportionate sanctions.” Or Guideline 5: “Failure to pay court fines and fees should never result in the deprivation of fundamental rights, including the right to vote.” And Guideline 8: “An individual who is unable to afford counsel must be afforded counsel, without cost, at any proceeding, including ability-to-pay hearings, where actual or eventual incarceration could be a consequence of nonpayment of fines and/or fees.” </p>
<p>It means something that these guidelines come from the ABA. ABA members have radically different political and ideological views, and they are affiliated with organizations ranging from the Federalist Society to the National District Attorneys Association to the Black Lives Matter movement. After a year of dialogue and debate amongst hundreds of diverse ABA members, the ABA House of Delegates unanimously adopted the guidelines. This signals a powerful and growing consensus that debtors’ prisons, wealth-based driver’s license suspensions, and other practices that sanction the poor more harshly than the rich are a shameful smear on our country and contrary to our most basic, shared values of due process and equal protection of the law. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court ruled more than 30 years ago that people should never be locked up behind bars solely because they are unable to pay court fines and fees they cannot afford. The ABA has created a tool that the public and every actor in the legal system — legislators, litigators, judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys — can use to do their part to ensure that debtors’ prisons are truly a thing of the past. </p>Speak Freely<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/bail-reform/uss-largest-organization-lawyers-agrees-courts-must-stop-treating">69787</a>Mon, 13 Aug 2018 15:45 -0400American Civil Liberties Union12 Things Other Countries Have Done to Promote Gender Equity https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/12-things-other-countries-have-done-promote-gender-equity
As we fight for gender justice in America, here’s some inspiration from around the world.
<p>“You’ve come a long way, baby.” That was a slogan of my youth. It was a marketing campaign for Virginia Slims, a cigarette marketed to women. The ads featured sexist images of the past — “Give women the right to vote and, by heavens, next thing you know, she’ll want to smoke like a man” — to mark progress. </p>
<p>Now, nearly two decades into the 21st century, I wonder how far we have really come. More than 20 states explicitly prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ people; a Black woman is the candidate of a major party to be governor of Georgia; and sex discrimination is banned in employment, education, housing, and federally funded health care. </p>
<p>But in America today, a woman makes on average <a href="https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2017/demo/P60-259.pdf" target="_blank">80 cents</a> to a man’s dollar. A Black woman makes only <a href="https://iwpr.org/publications/gender-wage-gap-2017-race-ethnicity/" target="_blank">62 cents</a> to a white man’s dollar. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000a" target="_blank">Federal law</a> prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation based on race, religion, and other categories, but not based on sex, including sexual orientation or transgender status. There are still police departments in this country that don’t make clear in <a href="http://andreajritchie.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Policing-Race-Gender-and-Sex-A-Review-of-Law-Enforcement-Policies.pdf" target="_blank" title="andreajritchie.com">policies</a> or training materials that on-duty sexual misconduct against civilians is prohibited. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/current-numbers" target="_blank">Six</a> of the nation’s 50 governors are women. <a href="http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/women-color-elective-office-2018" target="_blank">Five</a> are white. None is transgender or lesbian. <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/21/587671849/a-new-survey-finds-eighty-percent-of-women-have-experienced-sexual-harassment" target="_blank">Eighty-one percent</a> of women report having been subject to sexual harassment. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/2015-data-brief.pdf" target="_blank">More than a third</a> have experienced intimate partner violence. Those companies that provide paid family leave — still less than <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-28/more-companies-than-ever-offer-paid-parental-leave" target="_blank">40 percent</a> — often offer <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/plus/pages/152/attachments/original/1497475951/plus_leftoutreport_2017-6-14.pdf?1497475951" target="_blank">significantly less</a> leave for men, reinforcing the notion that raising children is women’s responsibility. Federal health plans, including Medicaid, <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s142/text" target="_blank">ban</a> coverage of abortion unless the pregnancy results from rape or incest or is life-threatening. </p>
<p>This list could go on.</p>
<p>The following are some approaches other countries have taken to combat gender inequity. This list does not constitute an endorsement of any country’s commitment to gender equality or to the effectiveness of the law in practice. We well appreciate that the countries below are not free of gender discrimination — some are arguably far more discriminatory than the United States — and the laws may be imperfect or more for show. But they nonetheless offer approaches that may merit our consideration. </p>
<h4><strong>1. Argentina’s Gender Identity Law</strong></h4>
<p>Argentina’s <a href="https://tgeu.org/argentina-gender-identity-law/" target="_blank">law</a>, adopted in 2012, allows for legal gender recognition based solely on an individual’s self-determination and makes sex-change surgery a legal right, covered by public and private insurance. </p>
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<strong>2. Germany’s</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Wage Transparency Act</strong>
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<p>As of January 6, 2018, German <a href="https://qz.com/work/1171514/by-law-women-in-germany-can-now-find-out-what-their-male-peers-are-earning/" target="_blank">law</a> allows workers at companies with more than 200 employees to find out the median remuneration of a colleague of the opposite sex in the same or a comparable role. The median remuneration is based on that of at least six opposite-sex colleagues. </p>
<h4><strong>3. Rwanda’s Political Representation</strong></h4>
<p>Rwanda’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/07/29/487360094/invisibilia-no-one-thought-this-all-womans-debate-team-could-crush-it" target="_blank">Constitution</a>, adopted in 2003, mandates that 30 percent of parliamentary seats be reserved for women. Today, <a href="http://archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm" target="_blank">61.3 percent</a> of the lower chamber and 38.5 percent of the upper chamber seats of the Rwandan parliament are held by women, the highest representation of women parliamentarians in the world. </p>
<h4><strong>4. Pakistan’s Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act</strong></h4>
<p>Pakistan’s <a href="http://www.senate.gov.pk/uploads/documents/1520932539_231.pdf" target="_blank">new law</a>, adopted in 2018, prohibits discrimination against transgender people in schools, at work, on public modes of transit, and while receiving medical care. It also allows people to choose their gender and to have that identity recognized on official documents, including national IDs, passports, and driver's licenses. </p>
<h4><strong>5. Iceland’s Equal Pay Law</strong></h4>
<p>Gender-based pay discrimination has been illegal in Iceland since 1961. But in the face of a gender wage gap of nearly 6 percent, Iceland adopted a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/20/iceland-equal-pay-law-gender-gap-women-jobs-equality" target="_blank">new law</a> in 2018 that requires companies to demonstrate that their wages are fair. By 2022, any public or private body in Iceland employing more than 25 people that has not been independently certified as paying equal wages for work of equal value will face daily fines. </p>
<h4><strong>6. Sweden’s Parental Leave</strong></h4>
<p>Sweden provides <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-with-best-parental-leave-2016-8#iceland-5" target="_blank">480 days</a> of paid parental leave, to be used before a child is eight. Two-parent households get the full benefit <a href="https://sweden.se/society/10-things-that-make-sweden-family-friendly/" target="_blank">only</a> if each parent takes ninety, non-transferable days off, an effort to ensure that no one parent or gender is seen as the sole caregiver. </p>
<h4><strong>7. Norway’s Board Membership Rule</strong></h4>
<p>Since 2008, Norway has required that women make up <a href="https://www.economist.com/business/2018/02/17/ten-years-on-from-norways-quota-for-women-on-corporate-boards" target="_blank">40 percent</a> of publicly listed company boards. Companies that fail to comply <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/taking-stock-of-pioneering-law-have-gender-quotas-really-helped-norwegian-women-a-745664.html" target="_blank">risk dissolution</a>. </p>
<h4><strong>8. New Zealand’s Sex Work Decriminalization</strong></h4>
<p>New Zealand <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/sex-workers-decriminalisation-of-prostitution-new-zealand-new-law-works-research-proves-sex-workers-a7761426.html" target="_blank">decriminalized sex work</a> in 2003 with the Prostitution Reform Act, which protects sex workers rights through employment and human rights legislation. </p>
<h4><strong>9. The United Kingdom’s National Health Service</strong></h4>
<p>The U.K.’s National Health Service covers <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/abortion/" target="_blank">abortion</a> and treatment for <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/" target="_blank">gender dysphoria</a>. </p>
<h4><strong>10. Canada’s End to Its Tampon Tax</strong></h4>
<p>In 2016, Canada <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tampon-tax-scrapped-in-canada-after-petition-convinces-conservative-government-10283929.html" target="_blank">eliminated</a> its 5 percent tax on tampons and other <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-32883153" target="_blank">menstrual</a> products. </p>
<h4>
<strong>11. Morocco’s </strong><strong>Law on Domestic Workers</strong>
</h4>
<p>In 2016, Morocco passed a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/09/domestic-workers-finally-have-rights-morocco">law</a> that requires proper labor contracts for domestic workers, limits their daily working hours, guarantees days off and paid vacations, and sets a minimum wage. The law also provides financial penalties for employers who violate these provisions and even prison sentences for repeat offenders. </p>
<h4><strong>12. Around the World: Women Leaders</strong></h4>
<p>In more than <a href="http://time.com/money/4362191/female-heads-of-state/" target="_blank">70 countries</a> women have served as president or prime minister. Those countries include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Liberia, Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. The first woman to become a head of state was Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who served as prime minister of Ceylon and Sri Lanka beginning in 1960. </p>
<p>Later this week, the ACLU will unveil a plan that calls out the ongoing problems of discrimination in the United States and pledges our commitment to achieving progress in each area over the next 12 months. To make progress, we need you. What policies do you think would advance gender justice in the United States? Please let us know in the comments section below. </p>Speak Freely<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/12-things-other-countries-have-done-promote-gender-equity">69785</a>Mon, 13 Aug 2018 15:15 -0400American Civil Liberties UnionA Man Wanted to Speak at His Trial. The Judge Taped His Mouth Shuthttps://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/man-wanted-speak-his-trial-judge-taped-his-mouth-shut
All criminal defendants have a right to speak at their sentencing, yet one Ohio judge decided to silence a young Black defendant with duct tape.
<p>Franklyn Williams is a 32-year-old Black Ohioan who, at his sentencing hearing, was talking. Judge John Russo thought he was talking too much. So with Williams surrounded by six officers, Judge Russo ordered them to place red tape over Williams’ mouth. </p>
<p>The judge explained his reasoning for having tape put over Williams’ mouth. It was to “maintain decorum.” After silencing Williams with duct tape, Russo proceeded to sentence Williams to 24 years in prison, in absentia, for aggravated robbery, kidnapping, theft, misuse of credit cards, and unlawfully possessing weapons. </p>
<p>What Russo did to Williams isn’t just humiliating and unnecessary — it’s against the law. </p>
<p>All criminal defendants have a right to speak at their sentencing hearing. Under both federal and Ohio law, a judge at sentencing must address the defendant personally and ask if he wishes to make a statement on his own behalf or present any information that the judge should take into account before delivering punishment. </p>
<p>This is why the requirement is so important — it’s the last opportunity for a defendant to influence a judge’s decision about the punishment to be imposed. If the defendant chose not to testify at trial, or go to trial at all, then the sentencing hearing is oftentimes the only opportunity for the judge to hear directly from the person she or he is about to punish. </p>
<p>Judges in Ohio who silence defendants face the possibility that their original sentence will be tossed out by an appellate court. In <a href="https://1.next.westlaw.com/Document/Ie6e44411cf2111d98ac8f235252e36df/View/FullText.html?listSource=Foldering&amp;originationContext=clientid&amp;transitionType=MyResearchHistoryItem&amp;contextData=%28oc.DocLink%29&amp;VR=3.0&amp;RS=cblt1.0" target="_blank"><em>Silsby v. State</em>,</a> the Supreme Court of Ohio found that the defendants in the case were not allowed to speak at their own sentencing hearings, even though they properly raised the issue at the time. As a result, the court ordered the defendants to be resentenced. <em>Silsby </em>has been the law since the 1920s, it is still the law, and it still protects the rights of defendants, like Williams. </p>
<p>In Williams’ case, even though the judge allowed him an opportunity to speak on his own behalf, it is clear from the <a href="https://700wlw.iheart.com/featured/bill-cunningham/content/2018-08-02-video-judge-has-mans-mouth-taped-shut-during-sentencing/" target="_blank">video</a> that Williams wanted to present more information about his case and his experience in the system. He wanted to tell the judge that he was handcuffed on a bus for five days on the way back to Ohio and that he’d met his public defender only a few days before the sentencing hearing. This particular fact is important information because the new lawyer may not have known all of the mitigating information, so allowing Williams to present his own evidence was critical to the appearance of fairness at his sentencing hearing. </p>
<p>Whether Judge Russo’s denial of Williams’ right to fully express himself constituted a violation of federal or state law, or both, is a question left to an appellate court. Judge Russo has since shown remorse for his actions, issuing the following statement several days after Williams’s hearing:<br><br>“A judge has a moral and ethical obligation to avoid the appearance of impropriety. To my colleagues on the bench in Cuyahoga County, and the 700+ judges in the state of Ohio, I regret any impact or repercussions from my actions last week, I never want the fairness and justice you deliver in your courtrooms to be questioned, no matter the circumstances.” </p>
<p>As a former public defender, I appreciate Judge Russo’s apology to Williams. With the jail or prison time looming, a criminal sentencing hearing can be emotionally charged for the defendant. It is, arguably, one of the lowest points in a person’s life, and judges need to take that into account. I’ve had former clients cry and express sincere remorse, and I’ve also had former clients cuss everyone out, including the judge. It may not be the smartest thing to do, but it is the defendant’s right to say whatever he wants.</p>
<p>Williams is going to be in prison for a very long time. He should have been able to speak his mind at his own sentencing. The law demanded it, and Ohioans deserve courts that uphold the people’s rights, no matter which defendant is facing a judge or which judge is presiding.</p>Speak Freely<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/man-wanted-speak-his-trial-judge-taped-his-mouth-shut">69784</a>Mon, 13 Aug 2018 13:15 -0400American Civil Liberties UnionVoters Hold Bob McCulloch Accountable in St. Louis Countyhttps://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/prosecutorial-reform/voters-hold-bob-mcculloch-accountable-st-louis-county
Momentum for a progressive prosecutorial revolution is building.
<p class="MsoNormal">This week, voters in St. Louis County sent a clear message of support for the creation of a smarter justice system. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the race for St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney, the incumbent Bob McCulloch was handily defeated by Wesley Bell, a Ferguson councilman and McCulloch’s first challenger in years, in the Democratic primary. There is no Republican candidate in the race. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">McCulloch, who was first elected in 1990, drew national scrutiny and sharp criticism over how he handled the investigation into the killing of Michael Brown, a tragedy which occurred four years ago this week. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While the ACLU does not endorse or oppose candidates for office, we were involved in educating voters about the role of the prosecuting attorney, the candidates’ stances and records, and the key civil liberties and civil rights issues at stake in this election.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As part of our Smart Justice campaign, we wanted voters to know that this election will have a major impact on matters like curbing mass incarceration, holding police accountable, and reducing the inequalities based on race and income in our criminal justice system.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Together with our coalition partners in the St. Louis County Reform Coalition, we sent detailed questionnaires to the two candidates and set up a website, <a href="https://www.pickyourpa.org/" target="_blank">PickYourPA.org</a>, outlining their positions on topics like doing away with cash bail, promoting alternatives to incarceration, and increasing transparency.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">McCulloch largely ignored the yes-no questions in our survey and instead responded with a broad description of his office policies. He, unfortunately, decided to skip candidate forums with community members and embarked on a campaign of misrepresenting his time in office and attacking the ACLU. But his brazen attempt to mislead voters only created <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/bail-reform/when-prosecuting-attorneys-push-back-we-bring-out-facts">another opportunity</a> to educate residents about his real record.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Bell, on the other hand, committed to supporting many of the key <a href="https://www.aclu.org/issues/smart-justice/campaign-smart-justice">Smart Justice goals</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If elected, Bell said that he would eliminate cash bail, increase the use of diversionary programs for low-level drug offenses, never seek the death penalty, and waive fees that encumber low-income individuals. Crucially, Bell said he would work to hold police officers accountable for reported abuses of power, including through the establishment of independent investigations into cases involving police misconduct.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He also declared that he would advocate for greater transparency with the community, the reform of the county’s juvenile justice system, the protection of immigrants from federal deportation schemes, and second chances for people released from incarceration.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As part of our voter education campaign, we set out to work with the St. Louis County Reform Coalition, an alliance of civil rights groups, and others in the community to address the issues in the race. Our volunteers knocked on thousands of doors and made phone calls, having countless conversations with voters about the civil liberties issues at stake.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Along with the PickYourPA.org website, we launched a <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/8epbmlj7qbb1r5a/ACLU_McCulloch_R60_V1_rev.mp3?dl=0" target="_blank">radio ad</a> addressing McCulloch’s refusal to end the unjust cash bail system and shared an <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/sh/j0dxr20acd2tm8l/AABj76LFZJG3Xclx4nj7moGVa?dl=0&amp;preview=180725_MK_ACLUPost_15_16x9_1.mp4" target="_blank">online video</a> detailing one woman’s experience with the prosecutor’s office. When her husband was convicted of a crime in federal court, McCulloch used the federal case to needlessly lengthen his sentence in the state system. This incident was emblematic of McCulloch’s heavy-handed approach throughout his tenure that relied on incarceration as a first resort.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We worked with groups on the ground in St. Louis County, including all the members of the St. Louis County Reform Coalition, to mobilize voters from across the county — north, west, and south. For many, August 7 brought tears of joy. In gathering places throughout the county, the recognition that voters had spoken in strong support of reform uplifted the voices of community members who for years had pushed for systematic changes. St. Louis County voters and community organizations alike are invigorated and committed — cognizant that the work continues but relieved that community anguish is being heard. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a result, civil liberties issues gained tremendous prominence in a race that is often ignored and uncompetitive, and voters delivered an unequivocal verdict. Voters <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/americans-overwhelmingly-support-prosecutorial-reform-poll-finds">across the county</a>, regardless of state or political party, want elected prosecutors like Bell who are committed to reform. This race shows that when voters are given a real choice on Election Day and given the information they need about candidates’ actual records and position, they will vote those values at the ballot box. It’s an approach we will continue to replicate throughout the country.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But this isn’t the end of our work. With Bob McCulloch’s tenure now coming to an end, we will now turn to working just as hard to ensure that Wesley Bell <a href="https://www.aclu-mo.org/en/news/letter-smart-justice-reforms-st-louis-county-prosecuting-attorney" target="_blank">upholds</a> civil rights policies. We won’t stop pursuing all efforts to end mass incarceration and eliminate racial disparities. </p>Speak Freely<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/prosecutorial-reform/voters-hold-bob-mcculloch-accountable-st-louis-county">69762</a>Fri, 10 Aug 2018 16:15 -0400American Civil Liberties UnionICE Contractor Tries to Scare Activists With Legal Threats, Free Speech Be Damnedhttps://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/rights-protesters/ice-contractor-tries-scare-activists-legal-threats-free-speech-be
Private prison company GEO Group, which helps the Trump administration lock up immigrants, can’t sue critics for exercising their free speech rights.
<p>It has been a rough week for the GEO Group, a private prison company that contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to lock up undocumented immigrants. And it’s making the contractor lash out in erratic fashion. </p>
<p>All week, activists have been raising <a href="https://geocages.com/" target="_blank">support</a> for a national day of action against GEO Group, which has been profiting off of the Trump administration’s war on undocumented immigrants. And on Tuesday, a federal judge certified a class action against GEO for systematic wage theft of detained immigrants, who are paid $1 a day as part of GEO’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/05/thousands-of-ice-detainees-claim-they-were-forced-into-labor-a-violation-of-anti-slavery-laws/?utm_term=.b7803c87503d" target="_blank">Voluntary Work Program</a>. </p>
<p>Under pressure from activists, GEO did what too many embattled corporations do: It threatened to sue. GEO’s lawyers served a cease-and-desist <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/385571124/Cease-and-Desist-and-DD-Response">letter</a> on Dream Defenders, the Florida-based human rights organization that had called on allies to push their elected officials to cut ties with GEO, rally at GEO prisons and detention centers, and “creatively disrupt” GEO offices on August 7. </p>
<p>The letter accuses Dream Defenders of making “knowingly false statements” which “likely give rise to... claims for defamation and tortious interference with GEO’s contracts.” Not content with making baseless defamation claims, GEO goes on to accuse Dream Defenders of “inciting a dangerous ‘disruption’” and “encouraging threatening and violent behavior.”</p>
<p>Neither of these allegations passes the laugh test. First, the allegedly defamatory statements — that GEO “separates” and “cages” people, that it “puts Black, Latino and poor White people into jail” and that it asserts “improper influence over the United States political system” — are protected statements on matters of public concern. As Dream Defenders’ nonplussed <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/385571124/Cease-and-Desist-and-DD-Response" target="_blank">response</a> details, these are far from verifiably false statements, which GEO would need to show in a defamation lawsuit. </p>
<p>In fact, Dream Defenders’ statements are well founded. The response letter highlights factual support for each of the allegations cited in GEO’s letter, from GEO’s own promotional materials referencing their sale of “steel cages” to news reports of GEO’s lucrative involvement in family separation. </p>
<p>Against the weight of lawsuits, news reports, and government investigations into the company’s practices, GEO’s contention that Dream Defenders spread information they knew to be false falls flat. The activists’ allegations are exactly the kind of political speech that is protected against government censorship and defamation civil lawsuits. </p>
<p>By the same token, calling on allies to “creatively disrupt” GEO’s “business-as-usual” is quintessential political speech, not <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/395/444" target="_blank">incitement</a>. GEO argues that Dream Defenders’ call for protest amounts to “encouragement” of unlawful behavior. But there are countless lawful ways for activists to heed Dream Defenders call for protest, and GEO’s letter fails to identify a single statement by Dream Defenders that instructs activists to break the law. In any case, even speech encouraging unlawful action is protected by the First Amendment, as we recently <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/under-law-encouraging-undocumented-immigrants-seek-shelter-could-be-crime">argued</a> to a federal appeals court. Although GEO considers Dream Defenders’ rhetoric “reckless” and “incendiary,” a call for protest is not a parliamentary motion, and activists are not required to observe Robert’s Rules of Order. The First Amendment protects “reckless” and “incendiary” rhetoric, so long as it doesn’t intentionally and directly incite immediate violence. </p>
<p>Cease-and-desist letters like GEO’s can do serious damage to public discourse, even if the claims themselves are ultimately rejected in court. Strategic lawsuits against public participation (also known as SLAPP cases), like the one threatened here or the <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/rights-protesters/standing-rock-protest-groups-sued-dakota-access-pipeline-company">lawsuit</a> filed last year against Greenpeace and other environmental groups, use the risks and costs of litigation to silence those who speak out against corporate malfeasance. </p>
<p>Facing outrageous damages claims and ruinous legal costs, many critics choose to self-censor rather than risk annihilation. Defending these cases is a heavy burden, particularly for nonprofit organizations like Dream Defenders, which don’t have the same deep pockets as their corporate adversaries. Resources that should be spent on advocacy would be diverted to legal costs, which suits the corporate plaintiff just fine. </p>
<p>That’s why it’s important to respond loudly and clearly to groundless threats like the one GEO made in response to a week of bad press. To quote the Dream Defenders, “<a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/385571124/Cease-and-Desist-and-DD-Response">Nah</a>.” </p>Speak Freely<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/rights-protesters/ice-contractor-tries-scare-activists-legal-threats-free-speech-be">69705</a>Fri, 10 Aug 2018 13:15 -0400American Civil Liberties UnionAcross New York, People of Color and the Poor Can Face Eviction for Calling 911 https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/women-and-criminal-justice/across-new-york-people-color-and-poor-can-face
A new report released by the NYCLU and ACLU reveals how “nuisance ordinances” hurt vulnerable tenants who need police assistance
<p>In March 2016, Fulton, New York, police received a call that a man and a woman were involved in a physical domestic dispute and that the woman was “yelling for someone to call 911.” When the police arrived, the woman described her boyfriend pushing her and punching her in the eye. The police helped make sure that the woman was safe. But the 911 call led to a threatening letter from the city to the landlord. </p>
<p>Citing the “volume of calls for service” from the property, the city threatened that it would take action, including closing the entire building, unless the landlord stopped the “nuisance activity.” </p>
<p>The ACLU has long been concerned about <a href="http://www.aclu.org/notanuisance">nuisance ordinances</a> and has taken them on in more than a dozen states, advocating against them in state and local legislatures and successfully challenging them in <a href="https://www.aclu.org/cases/nancy-markham-v-city-surprise">Arizona</a>, <a href="https://www.aclusocal.org/en/cases/victor-valley-family-resource-center-v-city-hesperia" target="_blank">California</a>, and <a href="https://www.aclu.org/cases/briggs-v-borough-norristown-et-al">Pennsylvania</a>. These local laws, which are also sometimes called crime-free ordinances or criminal activity nuisance ordinances, allow a city to label a property a nuisance when it is the site of a certain number of police responses or alleged “nuisance conduct,” a category that can include assault, harassment, stalking, disorderly conduct, city code violations, and much more. </p>
<p>By making eviction of tenants a potential consequence of police responses to their homes, these ordinances punish people in need of police assistance, including victims of domestic violence. </p>
<p>After a New York appellate court <a href="https://www.aclu.org/cases/board-trustees-village-groton-v-pirro">found</a> the Village of Groton, New York’s nuisance ordinance unconstitutional under the First Amendment, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the <a href="http://www.aclu.org/notanuisance">ACLU Women’s Rights Project</a>, along with the <a href="http://www.empirejustice.org/policy-advocacy/articles/nuisance-ordinances-resources.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/#.Wkz5ft-nGUk" target="_blank">Empire Justice Center</a> and the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, wrote <a href="https://www.nyclu.org/en/news/tenants-can-get-evicted-calling-police-across-new-york-and-much-country" target="_blank">letters</a> in January 2018, warning New York municipalities with similar laws. These letters also made public records requests about how these municipalities were enforcing their ordinances. </p>
<p>An analysis of the records we received in return, published today in <a href="http://www.nyclu.org/nuisance" target="_blank">a </a><a href="http://www.nyclu.org/nuisance" target="_blank">report</a> by the <a href="https://www.nyclu.org" target="_blank">NYCLU</a> and the ACLU, reveal just how enforcement of nuisance ordinances can harm New York communities. The data we obtained suggests these laws are most often enforced in communities of color and where poor people live, often impose harsh penalties for relatively low-level offenses, and harm domestic violence survivors and those in need of emergency medical assistance. </p>
<p>The enforcement data we uncovered made clear that where ordinances permit nuisance enforcement stemming from police responses to a property, they compound the biases of the criminal justice system and exacerbate socioeconomic and racial inequalities. These laws essentially make housing instability a consequence of law enforcement response to a home. </p>
<p>Rochester’s enforcement data presented a clear trend: From 2012 to 2018, neighborhoods that were non-white and poor bore the brunt of the city’s nuisance ordinance enforcement. Troy’s enforcement revealed similar patterns — neighborhoods where more nuisance ordinance enforcement took place tended to have higher shares of Black and Hispanic residents. The data we collected from Rochester and Troy also demonstrate that nuisance ordinances are enforced more in neighborhoods with higher rates of poverty. This is particularly troubling because nuisance ordinances can compound the housing instability that low-income residents already face. </p>
<p>Records received from Rochester, Troy, and Niagara Falls also show that nuisance ordinances are often enforced against properties for fairly minor offenses — including marijuana possession, disorderly conduct, noise violations, and “general disturbances.” That means that a nuisance designation can result in the eviction of tenants, the closure of a building, or steep fines, even though criminal penalties or other consequences for the same behaviors wouldn’t be nearly as severe. </p>
<p>As the story from Fulton illustrates, many nuisance enforcements are the result of serious calls for help. In Fulton, 37 percent of the police reports provided for each property were associated with a potential domestic-violence situation. This is particularly shocking because the ACLU had already put the city on notice through a 2015 <a href="https://www.aclu.org/report/silenced-how-nuisance-ordinances-punish-crime-victims-new-york">report</a> published with the Social Science Resource Council, which documented the city’s frequent enforcement of its nuisance ordinance based on domestic violence. </p>
<p>The new data we received also shows that a significant number of incidents where police responding to medical crises also counted against properties in Fulton. For example, in May 2015, the police responded to a property after receiving reports of a man making suicidal threats. When they arrived, the man “stated that he wasn’t feeling well and that his medications were not working...that he did not want to harm himself or others but that he was seeing things, like the devil and that he was fearful.” The police made sure this man got to an emergency room, but the incident also contributed to the list of calls for service cited by Fulton in a nuisance abatement letter. </p>
<p>Municipalities in New York should critically examine their nuisance ordinances and the ways in which they are enforced. A number of municipalities across the country have repealed such laws, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has recognized that repealing nuisance ordinances is a step that cities can take to fulfill their duty to further fair housing. </p>
<p>Cities across New York should at a minimum take steps — including amending their laws — to ensure ordinances are not disproportionately enforced in certain communities, do not impose disproportionate punishments for minor offenses, and do not punish domestic violence survivors or other individuals needing emergency assistance. And New York legislators should enact <a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/updated-aclu-ejc-nuisance.pdf">legislation</a> that affirmatively protects residents’ rights to police and emergency assistance. </p>
<p>The result of these laws is, after all, no mere nuisance. </p>Speak Freely<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/women-and-criminal-justice/across-new-york-people-color-and-poor-can-face">69771</a>Fri, 10 Aug 2018 11:00 -0400American Civil Liberties Union'Turn the Plane Around': Government Wrongfully Deports Asylum Seekershttps://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/deportation-and-due-process/turn-plane-around-government-wrongfully-deports
Judge orders administration to &#039;turn the plane around&#039; and temporarily blocks deportations of asylum seekers fleeing sexual and gang violence.
<p>The ACLU and the Trump administration squared off in court on Thursday over Jeff Sessions’ new policy that denies asylum protections to immigrants fleeing domestic violence and gang violence. The hearing focused on whether U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan would issue an emergency order to block the deportation of our plaintiffs, many of whom are women and children fleeing extreme sexual and gang violence, while the case proceeds. </p>
<p>As the judge deliberated the stay, disturbing news came to light: Early Thursday morning the government had pulled two of our clients—a mother and her young daughter—out of their detention rooms and put them on a deportation flight back to El Salvador. This directly violated government promises in open court the previous day that no one in the case would be removed before 11:59 p.m. Thursday night. </p>
<p>Judge Sullivan was outraged, saying “it was unacceptable” that someone who had alleged a credible fear and was “seeking justice in a U.S. court” would be “spirited away” while her attorneys were literally arguing on her behalf.</p>
<p>He ordered the government to “turn the plane around.” Further, the judge suggested that if the situation was not fixed, he would hold <a href="https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/grace-v-sessions-order">contempt </a>proceedings for those responsible—starting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions.</p>
<p>Our clients on that deportation flight, Carmen* and her daughter, fled El Salvador to escape two decades of horrific sexual abuse by her husband and death threats from a violent gang. Carmen was repeatedly raped, stalked, and threatened with death by her abusive husband, even when they were living apart. In June 2018, she and her daughter escaped, seeking asylum in the United States. Despite asylum officers finding that their accounts were truthful, they were ultimately denied them asylum protection because they did not have a “credible fear of persecution.”</p>
<p>This disconnect is the direct result of new policies issued by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that wrongly instruct asylum officers to deny whole categories of asylum claims, specifically gutting protections for immigrants fleeing domestic violence and gang brutality.</p>
<p>Sessions has now characterized these types of persecution as insufficient to invoke asylum protections, despite decades of settled domestic and international law which recognize gender-based persecution as a basis for asylum. Federal courts have also recognized asylum claims in a variety of circumstances involving gang brutality.</p>
<p>The ACLU and the Center for Gender &amp; Refugee Studies filed a <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/deportation-and-due-process/jeff-sessions-illegal-attacks-asylum-seekers">lawsuit</a> on Tuesday challenging the new policies. At the conclusion of Thursday’s hearing, Judge Sullivan issued the stay, temporarily blocking the deportation of any of the plaintiffs while the case proceeds.</p>
<p>What happened to Carmen embodies exactly why the stay is necessary: This administration has shown time and time again that in its rush to deport as many immigrants as possible, they will flout the law and callously put the most vulnerable people’s lives in danger.</p>
<p><em>*To protect the safety of the plaintiffs, names are pseudonyms.</em></p>Speak Freely<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/deportation-and-due-process/turn-plane-around-government-wrongfully-deports">69765</a>Thu, 09 Aug 2018 18:45 -0400American Civil Liberties UnionMemphis Police Surveillance of Activists Is a Betrayal and a Reminderhttps://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/memphis-police-surveillance-activists-betrayal
Memphis police collecting data on activists reminds us they did this decades ago in the Civil Rights Movement.
<p>A lawsuit by the ACLU of Tennessee recently produced <a href="https://theappeal.org/memphis-police-collected-black-lives-matter-activists-private-facebook-posts/" target="_blank">evidence</a> that Memphis police spied on Black activists. As Yogi Berra said, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” This is the same city where five decades ago the police spied on Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s the city where he was murdered. And it’s my hometown.</p>
<p>I know enough that I can’t claim surprise, but it hurts all the same to see yet another overstep by law enforcement, one with echoes in the history of the civil rights movement, and, make no mistake, it includes the struggle going on today for civil rights</p>
<p class="p-text">In 2016 and 2017, Memphis Police Department’s Office of Homeland Security (created after the September 11 attacks) decided it was legally appropriate and a good use of resources to create a fraudulent Facebook profile whose purpose was to deceive activists and gather information from them, including information from private posts. One activist recommended a book by community organizer Saul Alinsky in a private post, and Memphis police collected it. They also collected the names of 58 friends who “liked” it. MPD went further, making a PowerPoint presentation about BLM activists who protested police shootings at several places including an Elvis Presley <a href="https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2016/08/16/elvis-week-black-lives-matter-protests/88824036/" target="_blank">vigil</a>. </p>
<p class="p-text">What did police call their surveillance dossier on activists? “Blue Suede Shoes.”</p>
<p class="p-text">At the vigil, police barricades were used to keep protesters away, but racial profiling of people by police in this particular instance had an ironic result – police refused to let Black protestors pass the barricades, apparently assuming that no white people would protest at an event to honor the King of Rock and Roll. This resulted in some white protestors entering the vigil. As one protestor later <a href="https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2016/08/16/elvis-week-black-lives-matter-protests/88824036/" target="_blank">explained</a>, “They weren’t stopping the white people. They were just stopping the Black people.”</p>
<p>That PowerPoint presentation, including the names and faces of activists previously arrested at Black Lives Matter protests, went to Memphis police command staff. MPD admitted tracking activists’ associations, including their spouses in one case, and the groups they were involved in, including labor and Palestinian solidarity groups.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.memphistn.gov/UserFiles/Servers/Server_11150732/File/City%20of%20Memphis's%20Motionfor%20Summary%20Judgment%20Filings%20on%20Civil%20Contempt%204828-8321-9822%20v.1.pdf" target="_blank">MPD claims</a> it “has information from various sources that small groups of individuals use these legitimate public venues to advance their own agenda.” I remember hearing things like this before – 50 years ago, when police spied on Dr. King.</p>
<p class="selectionshareable">On April 3, 1968, Dr. King landed at the Memphis airport with one more day to live. The police inspector who ran MPD’s Inspectional Bureau, which included the Intelligence Section, ordered officers to the airport for surveillance purposes. The surveillance was <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-2d.html" target="_blank">justified</a> by MPD, “...not only because Dr. King was a controversial public figure, but also because he had been meeting with local Black militants while in Memphis on prior visits.”</p>
<p>At the same time, the FBI’s COINTELPRO program was told to step up the pressure on activists.</p>
<p>In August of 1967, COINTELPRO activities were authorized against organizations including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. On March 4, 1968, a COINTELPRO <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-2d.html" target="_blank">memo</a> described expanded COINTELPRO objectives and for the first time specifically named Dr. King. Among the goals was to “[p]revent the rise of a ‘messiah’ who could unify and electrify the militant Black Nationalist movement.” The memo continued, “... King could be a very real contender for this position should he abandon his supposed obedience to white, liberal doctrines (nonviolence) and embrace Black Nationalism.”</p>
<p>I grew up in Memphis. The city is in my heart – for reasons both good and bad. The last two times I have written about my hometown, it has been with pride and hope. I wrote about the removal of the Nathan Bedford Forrest Monument and its shameful honoring of white supremacy. I wrote about two MPD officers, one Black and one white, who responded to a call from a white woman about a Black person in her neighborhood. The officers were completely respectful in their dealing with the young Black man and ultimately warned the white woman, in the presence of the young man, that she could be arrested if she harassed the young man. This is an example of how police should react to 911 calls seeking to use them to <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/race-and-criminal-justice/how-police-can-stop-being-weaponized-bias-motivated">weaponize bias</a>.</p>
<p>Blue Suede Shoes and related surveillance activity take us backwards to a shameful past, not forward to the future we hope for and the racial justice we demand.</p>
<p>If you think the behavior is justified because it contained some information about people who had been arrested at protests, remember, Dr. King was arrested over 30 times in 12 years. He met with Malcom X. MPD was not justified in spying on Dr. King. MPD is not justified in spying on Black Lives Matter.</p>
<p>BLM activists are walking in the shoes of Dr. King and others who came before them. Memphis police should not be walking in the shoes of the police who came before them. The fact that they have represents another in a series of continuing examples of centuries of failings by law enforcement and the intertwined fear of Black liberation.</p>
<p>Maybe Elvis knew what he was talking about: “You can knock me down, Step in my face, Slander my name all over the place. Well do anything that you want to do. But uh-uh honey lay off of them shoes...” Law enforcement won’t stop Black liberation, no matter the color of our shoes.</p>Speak Freely<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/memphis-police-surveillance-activists-betrayal">69758</a>Thu, 09 Aug 2018 17:30 -0400American Civil Liberties Union